Documenting Milwaukee County

The MCHS Archives collects (two-dimensional) archival materials that document Milwaukee and Milwaukee County, broadly defined. These include official records from Milwaukee County government departments, the personal and family papers of individuals and families from Milwaukee County, the records of businesses and organizations based or with significant operations in Milwaukee County, photographs (including slides and negatives) depicting Milwaukee County or taken by photographers from Milwaukee County, maps and atlases that document Milwaukee County or its municipalities, and books that contain substantive content about Milwaukee County subjects.

Interior view of the Milwaukee County Historical Society research library featuring ornate neoclassical architecture, card catalogs, and vintage display cabinets with historical busts.

Digital Archive

We are actively digitizing a portion of our archival collection to be accessible to the public through our online collection database. This database includes Manuscript Collections, Declarations of Intent, Oral History Interviews, and Photographs.

Oral History Collections

The Milwaukee County Historical Society’s oral history collections seek to record history in real time, by the people who have lived it. Collections include Many Voices of Milwaukee, Covid-19 Milwaukee, and Brew City Oral History.

Black and white tintype-style portrait of Pao and Mee Yang, members of the Milwaukee Hmong community, from the "Hmong in Milwaukee" archival collection.
Historic black and white photo of a busy Juneteenth Day street festival on North Third Street (now King Drive) in Milwaukee during the 1970s.

Photo Collection

In collaboration with cultural institutions statewide, we are actively digitizing our photograph collection to be accessible to the public through the Recollection Wisconsin database. You can browse the collection by name, subject, date, format, or type.

More About Our Collections

Harry Anderson Research Library

Object Collections

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